Births, Deaths and Other Vital Events - Quarterly Figures

Second Quarter 2017

This release presents provisional figures for vital events which were registered in Scotland in the period from 1 April 2017 to 30 June 2017, inclusive. The tables and chart (available below) provide statistics of births, stillbirths, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths, including:

• quarterly figures for Scotland for each of the past ten years;

• the totals for each Local Authority and NHS Board area for the latest quarter; and
• more detailed analyses of the numbers of deaths (for example cross-classified by sex, cause and NHS Board area) for the latest quarter.

 Main Points

• The statistics show 12,964 births, 13,788 deaths and 8,017 marriages were registered between April and June.
• At 12,964, the number of births registered was 966 (6.9 %) fewer than in the same period of 2016 and the lowest quarter two total since 2003. The total number of quarter two births fell to a low of around 12,600 in 2002. It then rose to around 14,900 in 2008 before falling more recently.
• At 13,788, the number of deaths registered was 322 (2.4 %) more than in the same period of 2016. Over the past decade the number of deaths in the second quarter has fluctuated with no clear trend between 12,770 in 2009 and 13,903 in 2015.
• Compared with the second quarter of 2016, the number of deaths from coronary heart disease fell by 5.3 % to 1,590 and deaths from cerebrovascular disease fell by 4.8 % to 916. There were 3,831 deaths from cancer (a decrease of 0.8 %). Deaths from respiratory system diseases rose by 2.8 % to 1,642 compared with quarter two of 2016. There was an increase of 33.4 % in the number of deaths from Alzheimer’s Disease (570) and the number of deaths from dementia rose by 16.9 % to 936 (although part of this increase will be due to the change in cause of death coding software – more information can be found on the The Impact of the Implementation of IRIS Software for ICD-10 Cause of Death Coding on Mortality Statistics in Scotland paper on this website).
• Over the longer term, deaths from coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease have decreased considerably whilst the number of deaths from cancer and respiratory disease has risen slightly. There has been a relatively large increase in the number of deaths from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease with such deaths now accounting for around 10 % of all deaths compared to 5 % a decade ago.
• The provisional figures also show there were 8,017 marriages in total, 35 fewer than during the second quarter of 2016 (a fall of 0.4 %).
• There were 244 same-sex marriages, a fall of 38 (13.5 %) compared with the same period of 2016. Forty (16.4 %) of the same sex marriages registered in the second quarter were changes from civil partnerships.
• There were 10 civil partnerships (six male and four female), six fewer than during the second quarter of 2016.

 Statistical Service in Scotland

Tables and Chart

The tables and chart below have been made available as Excel spreadsheets and can be viewed in Comma Separated Value (CSV) or Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF).

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Commentary

More detailed commentary on the final Vital Events statistics for calendar years as a whole (including some comparisons of the figures for different years, for parts of Scotland and for some other countries) can be found in the following areas of our website:

• the relevant chapters of Scotland's Population - the Registrar General's Annual Review of Demographic Trends

 Note

This is a quarterly publication. The dates of future publications will be announced in our Future Publications page.

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